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For much of the 20th century, critique played an important part in what was considered "modern" architecture; the canon of modern architecture considered itself dedicated to both formal progress and social critique. But as the 1960s spurred a rereading of modern architecture from a perspective informed by Marxism and the decade's new social movements, many concluded that a building practice could not be critical, owing to its interdependent relationship with power and business. With recent economic crises hitting the building and property sectors, and research playing an increasingly large role in architectural practice, we are witnessing a renewed interest in critique in contemporary architecture, especially from postcolonial and feminist positions. The essays contained in this book, authored by a variety of international architects and thinkers, address this revived moment of critique, arguing that, far from being dead, architectural critique is now indispensable.
How architecture and urbanism can help to care for and repair a broken planet: essays and illustrated case studies. Today, architecture and urbanism are capital-centric, speculation-driven, and investment-dominated. Many cannot afford housing. Austerity measures have taken a disastrous toll on public infrastructures. The climate crisis has rendered the planet vulnerable, even uninhabitable. This book offers an alternative vision in architecture and urbanism that focuses on caring for a broken planet. Rooted in a radical care perspective that always starts from the given, in the midst of things, this edited collection of essays and illustrated case studies documents ideas and practices from a...
The Social (Re)Production of Architecture brings the debates of the ‘right to the city’ into today’s context of ecological, economic and social crises. Building on the 1970s’ discussions about the ‘production of space’, which French sociologist Henri Lefebvre considered a civic right, the authors question who has the right to make space, and explore the kinds of relations that are produced in the process. In the emerging post-capitalist era, this book addresses urgent social and ecological imperatives for change and opens up questions around architecture’s engagement with new forms of organization and practice. The book asks what (new) kinds of ‘social’ can architecture (re...
Rethinking Density: Art, Culture, and Urban Practices considers new perspectives and discussions related to the category of density, which for a long time has been part of urban-planning discourses and is now regaining the attention of artists and practitioners from a number of different disciplines. In an interplay of models, coping strategies, and experimental approaches, this publication combines research from cultural studies, artistic research, sound studies as well as architectural and urban theory. The issues discussed include the consideration of retroactive architectural design as a means to retrace the historical layers of a city, a proposal for spacesharing concepts as instruments...
Based on the findings of an interdisciplinary research project, Transcultural Modernisms maps out the network of encounters, transnational influences, and local appropriations of an architectural modernity manifested in various ways in housing projects in India, Israel, Morocco, and China. Three case studies, realized in the era of decolonization, form a basis for the project, which further investigates specific social relations and the transcultural character of building discourses at the height of modernism. Rather than building on the notion of modernism as having moved from the North to the South—or from the West to the rest of the world—the emphasis in Transcultural Modernisms is on...
A timely manifesto for a feminist post-work politics Does it ever feel like you have no free time? You come home after work and instead of finding a space of rest and relaxation, you’re confronted by a pile of new tasks to complete – cooking, cleaning, looking after the kids, and so on. In this ground-breaking book, Helen Hester and Nick Srnicek lay out how unpaid work in our homes has come to take up an ever-increasing portion of our lives – how the vacuum of free time has been taken up by vacuuming. Examining the history of the home over the past century – from running water to white goods to smart homes – they show how repeated efforts to reduce the burden of this work have faced a variety of barriers, challenges, and reversals. Charting the trajectory of our domestic spaces over the past century, Hester and Srnicek consider new possibilities for the future, uncovering the abandoned ideas of anti-housework visionaries and sketching out a path towards real free time for all, where everyone is at liberty to pursue their passions, or do nothing at all. It will require rethinking our living arrangements, our expectations and our cities.
Architecture and Capitalism tells a story of the relationship between the economy and architectural design. Eleven historians each discuss in brand new essays the time period they know best, looking at cultural and economic issues, which in light of current economic crises you will find have dealt with diverse but surprisingly familiar economic issues. Told through case studies, the narrative begins in the mid-nineteenth century and ends with 2011, with introductions by Editor Peggy Deamer to pull the main themes together so that you can see how other architects in different times and in different countries have dealt with similar economic conditions. By focussing on what previous architects experienced, you have the opportunity to avoid repeating the past. With new essays by Pier Vittorio Aureli, Ellen Dunham-Jones, Keller Easterling, Lauren Kogod, Robert Hewison, Joanna Merwood-Salisbury, Robin Schuldenfrei, Deborah Gans, Simon Sadler, Nathan Rich, and Micahel Sorkin.
Die vorgestellten Wohnprojekte in Wien entstanden aus dem Wunsch, Lebenskonzepte zu entwickeln, die den Gemeinschaftssinn stärken und zu einer solidarischen Gesellschaft beitragen - Baugruppen und partizipative Projekte, Quartiershäuer, temporäre oder permanente soziale Wohn- und Arbeitsformen für Randgruppen wie Obdachlose und Asylberechtigte. Privatwohnungen können verkleinert werden, wenn es mehr gemeinsam genutzte Flächen gibt. Das reduziert den Bedarf an Grund und Boden und gibt dem Gemeinschaftsleben Spiel- und Möglichkeitsräume. Die Kürzel der Baugruppe B.R.O.T. tragen ihr Programm im Namen: Begegnen, Reden, Offen sein, Teilen. Bei diesen Wohn- und Lebensmodellen geht es um Alternativen zum kapitalistischen Investorendenken. Die Nutzer bringen sich ein, auch bei der Projektplanung. Ulrike Schartner und Alexander Hagner von gaupenraup+/- erläutern in einem einführenden Interview Ausgangslage und Strategien ihrer Arbeit. Robert Temel und Isabella Marboe zeigen in zwei Essays die Entwicklung gemeinschaftlicher Bau- und Wohnformen anhand wichtiger Vorläufer und Tendenzen auf.
The prominent cultural critic Mieke Bal defines the new discipline of 'art writing' as a fresh mode of criticism, which aims to 'put the art first'. Following this definition, "Site-Writing: The Architecture of Art Criticism" puts the sites of the critic's engagement with art first. The book puts into shape what happens when discussions concerning situatedness and site-specificity enter the writing of art criticism. The sites explored are the material, emotional, political and conceptual settings of the artwork's construction, exhibition and documentation, as well as those remembered, dreamed and imagined. Through five different spatial configurations - both psychic and architectural - "Site-Writing" explores artworks by artists as diverse as Jananne Al-Ani, Elina Brotherus, Nathan Coley, Tracey Emin, Christina Iglesias and Do-Ho Suh, aiming to adapt such psychoanalytic ways of working as free association and conjectural interpretation to art criticism.
The Ethics of a Potential Urbanism explores the possible and potential relevance of Giorgio Agamben’s political thoughts and writings for the theory and the practice of architecture and urban design. It sketches out the potentiality of Agamben’s politics, which can affect change in current architectural and design discourses. The book investigates the possibility of an inoperative architecture, as an ethical shift for a different practice, just a little bit different, but able to deactivate the sociospatial dispositive and mobilize a new theory and a new project for the urban now to come. This particular reading from Agamben’s oeuvre suggests a destituent mode of both thinking and practicing of architecture and urbanism that could possibly redeem them from their social emptiness, cultural irrelevance, economic reductionism and proto-avant-garde extravagance, contributing to a renewed critical ‘encounter’ with architecture’s aesthetic-political function.